"In a democracy (‘rule by mob’), those who refuse to learn from history will be the majority and will dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance."
As part of my own lil Jólabókaflóðið (“Christmas book flood”), I started an ebook that was supposedly 800+ pp in length. Opened it. Every line is double-spaced. Double that between paragraphs. Does NOT improve the reading experience, just fakes up a 400pp book into a supposed 800+pp. *smh* That doesn’t even count the times I caught the writer padding the word count in the first few pages. Setting aside. Not even written all that well.
Moving on. . .
“Me and a bunch of my friends had rented. . . ” That magic “and” – once again used to make the monumentally stupid “Ugg. *chimp scratches; chows on louse found in armpit* Me had rented. . . ” into something acceptable to idiots.
*sigh* It’s as though some folks have a complete disconnect between their brains and any expression of language. “Every task does not need to be completed” ? “Not every task needs to be completed.” The first is the equivalent of “NO task needs to be completed,” as in none of them, zero, zilch, naught. The second =~= “Only some tasks need to be completed.” People who say/write the first when meaning the second have more than a few screws loose.
All kinds of little “gotchas” are traps for Dunning-Krugerand writers. One of my fav gripes is the inability of some to distinguish between uses of “have got” and “have gotten.” If nothing else has emerged in text before “have got,” its typical misuse by Dunning-Krugerand writers in cases where “must” cannot be substituted, for example, is a sure tell.
*Dunning-Krugerand is a term Larry Correia coined to refer to those incompetents who have a massive, undue respect for their own non-existent competence.
**FTL here denotes “For the Loss.”
Actually, this lil tip is not for all self-pubs. This one is just for subliterate Dunning-Krugerand fiction writers with delusions of competence. Here ya go, guys n dolls:
Always be sure that your “brilliant, genius” characters reflect your own brilliance and genius by having them be completely unaware of the significant differences between in/out, come/go, take/bring, number/amount, less/fewer, and be ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN to sprinkle their dialogue with non-words common to the vocabularies of pinheaded morons, like “anyways.”
I hope this helps.
Third rate (but aren’t they all that, at best, now?) “news” broadcast. “Communications major” (well, apparently *sigh*), blow-dried airhead talking about a storm, particularly a falling tree that “. . .narrowly avoided hitting a family. . .” as though the tree itself had some sort of agency and could of itself AVOID hitting the family, because it wasn’t just wind and gravity, no! The TREE itself could apparently affect its fall and AVOID hitting that po’ family it had previously (apparently) “aimed” itself at. #gagamaggot No, it narrowly missed hitting the family, by chance, but avoidance requires agency (even in passive voice).
But nowadays, since Hivemind audiences are almost all subliterates themselves, who really cares?
Confusion about personal pronouns has abounded among the lazy and willfully ignorant (the most pernicious form of stupidity) for much longer than the current “gender fluidity” stupidity. A typical construction for someone stuck at a VERY low English fluency (let alone literacy) level, and yet I see it time and again in books, passed over by illiterate proofreaders and editors goes something like this: “We have done something bigger than you and I.” Really? Take the magic “and” as well as the other person out: “We have done something bigger than I” just looks and sounds stupid doesn’t it? It doesn’t get any less stupid looking and sounding by adding a magic “and.” Nope, “We have done something bigger than you and ME.”
I had lost track of Margaret Ball and not read anything by her for several years when I ran across A Pocketful of Stars (Applied Topology Book 1). Good stuff, Maynard. I’m now working my way through the seven book series, and, if then quality remains at the level I expect from Ball, I am NOT looking forward to finishing book seven and discovering she has not written book eight. Yet. *heh*
Oh, there’s nothing “important” about the books (although my brief spate of appreciation for advanced–or even just semi-advanced–math ~50-ish years ago and continued casual appreciation to this day does enjoy the “math talk”). They are just fun, well-told stories with amusing and interesting characters. Juuuust a wee tad Wodehousian in “fluffiness,” if Wodehouse were to have been mathematically inclined and in tune with contemporary “college kidsian” mores.
*sigh* OK, it’s taken a bit of a “bodice-ripper” turn in book 3. Oh, well. It was good while it lasted.
In order to check your compatibility with Standard Social Media English, you might want to take an English language fluency/literacy quiz. If you score too well, your English will not be down to the “standards” of typical social media drivel. Here’s an easy-peasy MOR quiz, though it does have a couple of BrE (British English) quirks:
Sadly, my English language fluency/literacy disqualifies me from engaging in Standard Social Media English drivel:
